


Masks

by ainm



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, Halloween, Holiday, M/M, challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 10:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainm/pseuds/ainm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim isn't looking forward to the charity Masqued Ball, but it becomes unexpectedly & inexplicably interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masks

## Masks

#### by ainm

Author's website: <http://www.geocities.com/ainm66/TS>  
Not mine, making no money, intending no copyright infringement.  
Thanks to everybody who made this round of Sentinel Secrets a success!  
Written for Sentinel Secrets Round 4 on LJ, the challenge being Halloween. It's not really spooky, but it's not just a romance either. :-) Post-TSbyBS.  


* * *

Apparently the mayor's wife had been reading too many historical romances, because instead of either a formal party or a costume party for his charity bash, the mayor simply _had_ to merge the two and hold a "Masqued Ball." Or maybe the mayor's cousin had taken up mask-making, who knows? All I cared about was that he also simply _had_ to have Cops-of-the-Year Detectives Sandburg and Ellison at the damned thing. 

Tuxedos _and_ masks -- as if one or the other wasn't bad enough. Sandburg thought it would be fun, but he can find fun in just about anything -- thank god, or he wouldn't have been able to put up with me for so long. 

There was a bit of arguing about what to wear... our relationship was strictly need-to-know, and the mayor did _not_ need to know. Simon and the rest of the Major Crimes team knew, and seemed to enjoy keeping our secrets -- none of them had been fooled by Blair's press conference during the whole dissertation nightmare. 

And I was stunned, personally, by the fact that no one blinked an eye when Blair and I finally acknowledged the elephant in the living room and took our partnership that last step. _He_ wasn't surprised by their lack of surprise, of course -- he told me that most of them thought we'd already gone there years before, and that between the Sentinel thing and the amazing connection that they knew we had, our friends just saw us as Ellison-and-Sandburg and didn't worry about the rest. 

But we didn't need the mayor thinking about us as anything other than the top-notch detective team that we had proven to be. So Blair nixed my idea of wearing masks that matched each others' cummerbunds (and yeah, he called me a romantic sap -- but I've found that it's something I can live with), and we compromised on wearing matching masks in different shades, mine a midnight blue and his a very light sky blue. Figured we could just say we got a bulk discount or something. 

As much as I might complain about formal wear, I really don't mind the actual feel of it -- suits and tuxes and uniforms have been pretty much a constant for me, and I _do_ appreciate good clothing, especially now with the senses. Blair goes on and on about constriction and restriction and the unfairness of ingrained social customs that emphasize class structure, blah blah blah, but that's not it for me. I just know that if it requires formal wear, it's not the sort of event I'm going to have a good time at -- I'd rather stay home and have a beer in front of a ball game than be forced to mingle and do the political thing with a bunch of poseurs who think that they deserve my respect just because they're rich enough or well-connected enough to be there. 

So between one thing and another, it's safe to say that I wasn't looking forward to this pretentious affair. But I kept the grumbling to a minimum as we helped each other with our cummerbunds and ties, because a night spent _with_ Sandburg is better than a night without, even if it is at a "Masqued Ball." (I've already admitted the romantic sap bit.) 

And when we tried on the masks, I was startled by how the whole picture came together far better than I would have guessed from the individual pieces. He had done some fascinating thing with his hair, "to add interest," he said. He had braided just the front of his hair, one braid on each side, the ends secured with small strips of soft leather. He'd tucked one braid behind his ear, while on the other side the braid hung down in front of his ear. And the mask -- it covered much of his face, with just the top of his forehead, his eyes, and his sinful mouth showing. The blue of the mask made his eyes shine vividly from behind it, brighter even than the sparkly bits on the mask. 

He was the hottest thing I'd ever seen. 

"Let's get this over with," I told him, clearing my throat. "I want us in and out of there as quickly as possible." 

* * *

I had to admit, to myself at least, that the crowd at the mayor's charity ball looked far better than usual. The tuxedos and the ladies' gowns gave it an air of class that was probably undeserved, and the masks actually improved many of the patrons, sequins and feathers and glitter hiding dour faces and fake smiles. 

Nonetheless, it was still a boring, politically-mandated event. I didn't want to talk to these people, I didn't want to dance with these people, I didn't want to drink glasses of mass-market wine or eat little dried-out quiches, I didn't want to spend a Saturday night someplace where I couldn't touch my partner the way I wanted to... all the glitter in the world was not going to change any of that. 

"We'd better make ourselves seen so we can sneak out as soon as possible," I murmured to Blair as we made our way more fully into the hotel ballroom that had been retained for the occasion. 

He noticed, of course, when I winced as a faux-perky server shoved a platter of some sort of seafood something-or-other in my face. Waving her away with a smile, he leaned in toward me. 

"How are the senses in here?" 

"The band is just off-key enough to make me cringe, there are hundreds of people trying to talk above the music, and every single one of them seems to be wearing their most forceful cologne. The food has been out too long and the stench of it is clashing with all the perfume and the flowers and the weird smells of all the masks. How do you _think_ the senses are doing?" 

I don't really know why I always seem to act as if I think the senses are Blair's fault. It's not that I don't know and appreciate that he's been the only thing that has kept me alive and moderately sane all these years. But when they give me trouble, it makes me irritable and cranky and I have no one else to share it with most of the time. 

He just smiled, though, as he usually does when I give in to a momentary temper tantrum. "Come on, Jim, just dial down hearing a bit -- not too much, need to hear all the blather, right? -- and turn the ol' honker _way_ down. It's not a crime scene, after all." 

"Not yet, at any rate." 

"Come on, Mr. Cheerful, let's go make an appearance before the mayor, get that out of the way." 

He headed through the crowd, and I followed him, as I always do. 

* * *

We'd stayed together for a little while after the obligatory chat with the mayor, but then a couple of matronly ladies with masks that made them look kind of like mutant chickens approached us to dance, and we both moved through a variety of partners after that. 

I'd seen Blair eating some of the passed hors d'oeuvres and chatting with an animated fellow with a shock of white hair and a white satin mask, sort of Samuel Clemens-esque, and then lost track of him. Knowing Sandburg, he could be anywhere -- examining the pattern of the tiles in the lobby with Mark Twain, pinning some lady's dress back together with the safety pins he carried to every formal event just in case... it was pretty amazing, what he could get into. 

I, however, was still dancing with random women, never approaching any but never able to get off the dance floor either. They made me want to turn my hearing down altogether just to avoid their _fascinating_ tales of playing tennis last week with the mayor's wife or getting such an _amazing_ deal on their new chalet in the mountains... I finally managed to escape when my current partner collided with the next candidate and they were apologizing to one another. 

I was standing -- OK, hiding -- by the corner of a table that had accumulated an assortment of empty glasses and crumpled napkins and discarded hors d'oeuvres, and wondering how much longer we had to stay. I guess my mind was wandering, because suddenly there was someone standing in front of me. I hadn't heard the woman approach -- probably had my hearing turned down too far, I decided, and turned it up a bit. 

"Detective Ellison?" she asked. 

As I nodded, I took in her appearance... she had on an off-white gown, made of several layers -- it looked sort of wispy, but not too young for her. Her hair was covered in some medieval-looking thing in cream-colored velvet -- Sandburg probably could have told me the name of it, along with its cultural significance, but he still wasn't around. Her face was almost completely covered in a mask of white and silver. 

"Pleased to meet you," she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. I turned my hearing up a little more. She offered her hand, and I could tell from that glimpse of her that wasn't covered that she was an older woman, not yet elderly but considerably older than I was. 

I clasped her hand, and it felt cool despite the heat of the room. 

"And you are?" I prompted when she didn't introduce herself. 

"Oh, but it's a masked ball, hmm?" 

"Well, since you know _my_ name..." 

"Let a woman keep her air of mystery, Detective," she said with a hint of a laugh in her voice. 

"Fair enough, but please, call me Jim." 

"'Jim'... that seems too casual for such a formal event. May I call you James?" 

Something in me shivered slightly as she said my full name, but I shook it off and agreed that she could. 

"So, James, where has Detective Sandburg gotten to this evening?" 

"Oh, he's around here somewhere -- he always finds something intriguing even at an event like this." 

She smiled, though I could tell more by the blue eyes than by her lips, partially obscured by the mask. 

"It's quite warm in here... do you think we might go out to the terrace?" 

Given how cold her hand was, I thought that this was more likely a request for some privacy rather than an actual complaint about the temperature. But she wasn't like the other women I'd spoken to tonight, somehow... there was something intriguing about her, yet somehow she felt... safe. I only paused to consider for a moment before I nodded and followed her to the terrace doors. 

There were a few people on the intricately-patterned, faux-stone terrace outside the ballroom, but they were mainly near the doors. We walked silently to the other side, away from the casual chatter of the other party-goers and from the windows of the hotel. 

The night was clear, and the moonlight was bright enough that even one with non-Sentinel vision could see quite well. We stood together quietly, looking out over the low wall onto the small patch of landscaped grounds between the terrace and a higher wall the kept the city at bay. 

She broke the silence first. "So, James, you enjoy your work?" 

"Most days, yes." 

"Not all days?" 

"Well... sometimes it can be a difficult job, seeing things you'd rather not, whether it's people needlessly hurt, or justice going unserved." Some days I wish I could put a bit of the less savory training of my former career to good use and take out some of the bastards for good, to be honest, but she didn't need to know that. "But I believe in what I do." 

"And your partner helps, I'm sure," she commented. 

I restrained a laugh -- more than you could possibly know, ma'am. "Definitely -- Sandburg and I are a great team." 

"Yes, I can tell," she said, with a sort of satisfied tone that took me by surprise. I really wasn't sure how she meant it. 

"Excuse me?" 

"From what I've read," she said quickly. "And I saw you come in together tonight. You didn't bring dates, you came as a team." 

"Oh. Yes, right." Well, right enough anyway. We _are_ a team, but we brought dates too -- each other. 

"But... I think there's more to it, hmm?" 

Oh boy. Nothing about this woman made me suspicious that she was looking for anything to use against me. I couldn't explain it, but my instincts told me that she was no kind of threat, and that our secret would be safe with her. But I like to think that I'm a rational man, and I had no desire to broadcast our relationship unnecessarily -- neither the Sentinel aspect or the romantic aspect. "I'm... not sure what you mean." 

She put a hand on my arm, and her low voice became very serious. "I want you to believe that you can trust my discretion totally," she tried to assure me. "I won't tell a living soul... but it would... please me, knowing that you have found happiness with someone." 

"Blair and I are... very happy." There. I felt an unexpected sense of relief, and I got the impression that she relaxed as well, hard as it was to tell through her various layers. 

"That's wonderful to hear. I hope you both will look after one another, and be... understanding. Everyone has faults, James, and everyone has strengths. May you both use your strengths to accept each others' faults, and work together to stay safe and happy." 

I looked into her eyes, almost glowing within the mask, and somehow knew that no matter how startling her words were to me, she meant them deeply. I had no real idea how to handle this strange and increasingly intense conversation. 

"Thank you," I said simply, and could tell her expression, though mostly hidden, relaxed further. 

Suddenly I was hailed from the other end of the terrace. "Jim! There you are!" Blair called to me. 

I turned toward the sound, intending to introduce him to... her, but as I did I heard her whisper. 

"Goodbye, James..." Her words faded as if carried off on the wind. I whirled around to find her gone, no trace of her left at all. 

She couldn't have gotten back into the ballroom without passing both me and Sandburg, and there was nowhere she could have gone this quickly that I wouldn't have been able to see her, had she managed to go over the low stone wall of the terrace in that filmy dress... 

"Did you see where she went?" I asked Sandburg when we came together halfway across the terrace. 

"See who?" 

"Her, the woman I was talking to." 

"What woman?" 

I did _not_ like the way this was going. "The woman who was standing right next to me when you came out." 

"I didn't see anyone, Jim." 

"Of course you did -- you _had_ to have seen her! She was right there!" No, I didn't like this at all. 

"I'm sorry, man, I didn't see anyone out here. You were just standing looking out into the night." I could tell that he wasn't messing with me, but I couldn't really accept what that implied. 

"No, Sandburg," I argued, my panic increasing until I was finding it a little hard to catch my breath. "I was talking to _her_ \-- dressed all in white, you couldn't have missed her..." 

Suddenly I stopped arguing and just felt... limp. 

"Can we go home now, Chief?" Screw the mayor, I'd had enough. 

"Yeah, Jim, I think it's time." 

* * *

I was quiet during the drive home, trying not to think about what had happened. I was still caught up in the _feel_ of it, though, the calm but intense and serious tone, the atmosphere of mystery... I wanted to shake it off, but I couldn't. 

Unexpectedly, Blair didn't regale me with his tales from the party -- I was sort of hoping that he would start a soliloquy and help me out of my mood, yet I was perversely glad that he didn't... apparently I _wanted_ to keep the feeling for a little while longer, despite what I _thought_ I wanted. 

We were both silent as we went up to the loft and went about de-masqueing. It wasn't an awkward silence, though, for which I was very grateful. The night had _not_ ended up the way I had hoped at all... 

We managed to get through the whole nightly routine with no more than the occasional "here" or "thanks" between us. I should have expected that Blair was just waiting until we got settled into bed to start the questioning... 

"So, Jim. What happened?" 

"Nothing happened, Sandburg. I met a woman, we talked, she left." After all these years, I'm still not good at sharing things, even when I know it's a smart idea. 

"Right." As predictable as I am, so is he. "So... who was she?" 

"I don't know." 

"What do you mean you don't know?" 

"It _was_ the Masqued Ball, you know. She stayed covered." No, I didn't sound defensive. Not at all. 

"You didn't get her name?" 

I _did_ ask... "No." 

He made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a snort. "OK, fine. So how did you meet her? Dancing?" 

"No, I was just standing out of the way, and she..." I really didn't want to think about it. 

"She what?" 

"She... she appeared, OK? She just... appeared." 

"What?! So you mean to tell me that you spent part of the evening speaking to an invisible woman who appeared and disappeared at will?" 

"No! No. Well... yes. I mean, I didn't think much about her appearing until she disappeared too, I guess... " 

"Oh, Jim, how do you get yourself into these things? Here I am off listening to some guy's totally lame theories about the cultural implications of hotel art, while you go and have a supernatural experience. Some people have all the luck!" 

"Luck?! And it wasn't supernatural!" 

"Well, what was it, then?" 

"I... I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation." It's not that I don't realize that I'm sticking my head in the sand, it's just that sometimes I have to at least pretend that my life isn't full of the bizarre and the paranormal. Kind of like Scully on the X-Files. 

"Did you see the moon?" he asked me in a head-spinning change of apparent subject. 

"What?!" 

"The moon... did you see it? I noticed before I even got through the glass doors to the terrace." 

"I'm sure it was lovely." 

He used his 'losing patience here' voice on me. "Come on, Jim, think! It was full." 

"The moon? I remember it was pretty bright, yeah." I'm not giving an inch more than I have to, Sandburg. 

"What about your senses?" 

"Come on, Chief, it's been a long night -- you're giving me whiplash with the rapid-fire topic shifts here." 

He spoke slowly and carefully, as if he were about to start smacking me but he knew it wouldn't get him what he wanted. "What did you notice about the woman with your senses?" 

"Um... not much, really. I was surprised I didn't hear her walk up to me, but that was because I had my hearing turned down because of the awful band. And her voice was very soft." 

"Anything else? Scent? Touch? Were you able to touch her?" 

"Of _course_ I was able to touch her! I shook her hand, for crying out loud!" 

"What did it feel like?" 

"A _hand_ , Sandburg! A cold hand, but --" 

" -- cold?" he broke in. 

"Look, Chief, do we have to talk about this?" 

"Of course we do, Jim." He looked at me like I was an idiot. I guess I was... but I just really didn't want to go down the path that he seemed to be heading. 

"Did you know," he began in a conversational tone that didn't fool me at all, "that the Celts celebrated Samhain at the full moon nearest the date of what we now call Halloween?" 

"Um..." 

"And that one of their beliefs, which gave rise to much of our modern-day Halloween tradition, was that during Samhain the veil between the worlds parted and the living and the dead mingled in a single reality?" 

"She wasn't a ghost." I tried for matter-of-fact, but I think I missed. 

"Well, what's your explanation?" 

"She couldn't be a ghost! I touched her hand! She was cold, but she was there!" 

"What's your explanation?" he asked again. He'd ask all night if I didn't stop him somehow. 

"Look, it wasn't anything like Molly..." I argued, truthfully but without much conviction. 

"That didn't happen at Samhain, though." 

"But..." 

"Maybe her spirit could take corporeal form only for tonight." 

"But _why_? Why would some spirit decide to chat with me, out of anything else she could do?" 

"Maybe she lived in the area when she was alive? One of the usual beliefs about ghosts is that they tend to go where they had strong ties in life." 

"She _knew_ me, Blair. She knew _you_. She couldn't be dead. She asked a lot of questions about..." 

"About what, Jim?" His tone was suddenly gentle. 

"About... us. About me. About whether I was happy, and... whether we... well, you know." 

"Whether we were together?" 

"Right." 

"Hmm... And you have no idea who she was?" 

"I tell you, Blair, she was almost completely covered. Her gown reached the floor, her hair was covered in a fancy hood, and her mask covered almost her entire face, even part of her mouth. Everything except her eyes..." I trailed off as I remembered her eyes, vividly blue and totally alive, not those of a ghost or roving spirit or whatever... 

"What were her eyes like?" He startled me out of my reverie with the question. 

"They were... compelling. Blue, so blue they seemed to glow sometimes when the light was just so..." 

"Blue like mine, blue like yours, what sort of blue?" 

"Blue like... oh my god." 

"Jim?" 

I was glad we were lying down already, because I would have fallen. The eyes, the curiosity about my life and my happiness, the way she said my name... no one called me that but _her_... 

"My god, Blair... I think she was my _mother_." 

* * *

End Masks by ainm: ainm@livejournal.com  
Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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